The European Court of Justice will make a ruling Tuesday that could profoundly impact the public’s right to access information online.

Fifteen judges will decide whether people have “the right to be forgotten” regarding what information can be found when searching their name online.

The right means that if someone can prove that searchable information is “inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive,” companies such as Google LLC can be forced to have the links to that name delisted. It doesn’t mean that websites have to remove the content.

Europe’s top court first established the right to be forgotten rule in 2014, and since then many Europeans have taken advantage of the law. Google’s latest transparency report said 655,000 requests were made since the 2014 ruling, which in total was about 2.5 million links. Google agreed to remove 43.8 percent of the URLs.

Why are people asking for information to be hidden from view? Google wrote that a third of requests related to “social media and directory services that contained personal information,” and a large part of the requests were people wanting their legal history on news sites or government websites removed. It seems thousands of people using the dating site Badoo wanted information hidden as well.

It’s also interesting that 34,000 links that were asked to be removed came from politicians and government officials, while celebrities and other public figures asked for 41,000 links to be delisted.

The landmark case this week will ask whether Google, and other companies such as Microsoft Corp. with its Bing search engine, should be made to grant users the chance to wipe their slate clean globally. The judges will hear cases from individuals but also listen to privacy rights groups and activists working to protect the freedom of information.

In individual cases, some people are just asking that personal information be removed, such as their sexual orientation or health-related information. Another case involves someone convicted of child sex abuse and another information regarding “a person holding public office” involved in a relationship with the applicant.

Google has said that the public also has a right to know. “If the Court accepted this argument, it would give carte blanche to people who might wish to use privacy laws to hide information of public interest — like a politician’s political views, or a public figure’s criminal record,” the company said in a blog post.

As for geographic delisting, Google said such a ruling would run contrary to international law. “No one country should be able to impose its rules on the citizens of another country, especially when it comes to linking to lawful content,” said the company, adding that countries with less democratic regimes could exploit such a law.

People have the right to access lawful and valuable information, said Google: “These cases represent a serious assault on the public’s right to access lawful information.”

Image: Google